Marathon Digital Holdings: Stock Falls After Impressive Rally

Shares of crypto miner Marathon Digital Holdings experienced a significant drop of nearly 18% on Friday afternoon, reaching as low as $23.07. This marks the worst day for the stock since January 18. However, the stock, represented by the ticker MARA, managed a slight rebound during the afternoon session but was still down almost 16% to $23.60 as of 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, based on FactSet data.

The decline in Marathon's stock follows an impressive rally that saw a 112.1% surge over an 11-day winning streak. The stock reached its highest price since March 29, 2022, closing at $31.07 on Wednesday before dropping 9.5% on Thursday. The stock had previously experienced a 17.4% fall on January 18.

Despite this recent setback, Marathon shares have still risen by an impressive 600% year-to-date, positioning the stock for its best year since 2020, according to FactSet data. The surge in the stock's value is partially attributed to optimistic expectations surrounding the potential approval of a spot-bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States.

Similar trends have been observed among other crypto miners. Shares of Riot Platforms have seen a remarkable increase of over 360% this year, while shares of Ebang International have surged by more than 430% during the same period.

As for Bitcoin itself, the cryptocurrency experienced a slight decline on Friday, with a 1.1% dip over the past 24 hours. Its current value sits slightly above $42,000, according to CoinDesk data. Nevertheless, Bitcoin has still seen substantial growth of 156.9% year-to-date, despite being down nearly 40% from its peak in 2021.